Golden Gate Bridge board approves funding for suicide barrier

SAN FRANCISCO &GT;&GT; In a historic vote followed by applause and tears, the Golden Gate Bridge district Board of Directors unanimously approved funding Friday to build a suicide barrier on the span.

A standing-room-only crowd filled the board room at the span's Toll Plaza administration building as family members addressed the board, relaying the pain and devastation the suicides have caused as they urged funding approval.

"My main thing for being here is to prevent future deaths," said an emotional Manuel Gamboa of Fair Oaks, whose 18-year-old son, Kyle, jumped from the span last September.

The Gamboa family is one of many who have pleaded with the bridge board over the years to put up a barrier, but until recently the political will wasn't there, said board member Brian Sobel of Sonoma.

"We have heard your voices, we have listened to your stories," Sobel told the families and friends of suicide victims. "The hard work has occurred at every level of government. It's a collaborative effort. But the underpinning is the families, who have week in and week out reminded all of us of the pain and suffering that has accrued as a result of not having a barrier in place, and that is being brought to an end."

Board member John Moylan, long an advocate for the barrier, made the motion to approve $20 million in funding for the $76 million project. Earlier this month his grandson jumped from the span.

"We never gave up the idea," he said. "The good people we have to thank are the people who lost family out there. Losing a family member, there is nothing worse in my opinion. Suicide tears family apart."

The vote was met with cheers from family members who applauded, sobbed, and cried "we did it" and "thank you." In turn, the board members applauded the family members.

If all the funding comes together as planned, the contract for the work would go out at the end of this year and it would take about three years to build, with complete installation expected by early 2018.

Under the funding plan Caltrans would contribute $22 million, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission $27 million and the state $7 million. Those agencies still must vote to OK the funds, but approval is expected.

Backers of a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge got a boost in July 2012 when President Obama signed a transportation bill that included language allowing federal funds to flow to the project.

The bridge district's suicide barrier plan calls for a net extending 20 feet below and 20 feet from the side of the span. The net would be made of stainless steel cable.

While people could still jump into the net, such occurrences might be rare because the net would act as a deterrent. A similar net was placed more than a decade ago on the Munster Terrace cathedral in Bern, Switzerland, and since then no suicide attempts have been reported.

"If there is a barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge they wouldn't go anywhere else," said Dr. Mel Blaustein of Mill Valley, chairman of the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California and the Golden Gate Bridge Barrier Task Force. "We have good scientific study showing that 90 percent of people taken from the bridge did not go on to (commit) suicide later in life."

Discussion of a barrier began in the 1950s, but the first intensive look at a solution took place in the early 1970s, when 18 design concepts were evaluated, then shelved.

Between 1997 and 1999, the district's Building and Operations Committee requested another review of all of the original 18 designs brought forward during the studies in the 1970s, along with preliminary analysis of a "Z-Clip" concept. Officials determined that the "Z-Clip" design was not foolproof and was a bad aesthetic fit for the span, and it was abandoned.

After emotional testimony before the bridge board in 2005, several agencies — including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission — contributed funding for the suicide barrier study.

Roughly two dozen people jump from the span each year, and more than 1,500 people have jumped from the span since it opened in 1937. Another 80 or so people who are contemplating suicide are pulled off the bridge every year.

The bridge has the most suicides of any structure in the world, according to the Sausalito-based Bridge Rail Foundation, a group working to get a barrier in place.

"It means the world to a lot of people," said Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a former bridge board member who pushed hard for the barrier. "It's a tribute to those who did jump, recognizing they didn't die for nothing."